Steven Peeler, lead designer and programmer on Depths of Peril was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

1. Thank you for your time. Please introduce yourself and tell us your position on the Depths of Peril team.

My name is Steven Peeler. I’m the lead designer and programmer on Depths of Peril.

2. Tell us a bit about the story and what type of gameplay is the game offering.

Story wise, an orc named Draaien gathered a huge army of orcs and a necromancer named Ciglio raised a horde of zombies and proceeded to decimate the peoples of the west. After destroying most of the cities and being on the verge of completely annihilating most of the races of the west, their alliance broke down and they started fighting each other over the spoils of war. The game starts after the west has lost, but the armies of orcs and zombies are still at war, so everything is in a pretty chaotic state.

This is where the player comes in. The player leads a faction (called a covenant in the game) within one of the rebuilding cities of the barbarians. Barbarians are very brutal and only the strongest survive. All of the leaders of the barbarians died during the war. Being the brutal race that they are, barbarians typically choose their leaders through fights to the death. The last covenant left alive rules the city.

Depths of Peril is an action RPG with a strategy twist. You have a large world to explore and solve quests in but at the same time you are striving for your covenant to defeat the others so that you can rule Jorvik (your city). You must use diplomacy and trade to keep the other covenants at bay when you are weak and go to war and raid the other covenants when you are strong, if you expect to live.

The Depths of Peril world is also very dynamic. It changes based on the actions of the player, the other covenants, and sometimes even the monsters.

3. What features makes Depths of Peril stand up from the crowd?

In most action RPGs you simply play through the linear storyline. Not so in Depths of Peril. There is a storyline and plenty of deep reading material, but what sets Depths of Peril apart from other action RPGs is mostly the covenant gameplay and the dynamic world.

You are not alone in Depths of Peril. There are multiple other covenants nearby that are plotting your death, so they can control the city. You have many options to deal with this threat including diplomacy, trading, wars, and raids. In how many other single player games can you participate in raiding another enemy faction?

Nothing is ever the same in Depths of Peril. The world is very dynamic and changes depending on many factors and even has natural consequences. If you don’t solve one quest, it might morph into another harder quest. If you wait long enough one of the other covenants might solve the quest first. In how many action RPGs can this scenario happen? An orc spy comes into town, the town looks weak and the scout has time to communicate to his clan and they raid the town. While raiding the town, the orcs poison the water supply, kill off the town steward, and destroy the Kindred Spirits covenant.

4. I’ve noticed that any skill can be selected no matter what level your character has. Why this type of skill system instead of a classic skill tree?

We tried something new because there are some problems with the classic skill tree. With a skill tree, initial skills are almost always pretty crappy and you waste skill points on skills you don’t want simply because they are prerequisites. It also always seems pretty arbitrary.

So in Depths of Peril we took all of that out. Every skill point is used on a skill you actually want, you can go straight for the more expensive skills at the beginning of the game if you want to, and all of the skills are fairly useful depending on what kind of build you want to make. 

5. How smart is the monster A.I. and how are the item drops implemented? Do only specific monsters drop some items?

What we tried to do in Depths of Peril was to make each monster type fun and behave in a different way. For example, male imps are usually pretty cautious. They typically attack in groups and use hit and run tactics. However, if you attack a female imp, they will get really upset, go berserk, and start attacking outright.

This also makes it so a skilled player will vary their tactics depending on what specific monsters they are fighting.

No, you don’t have to kill any specific monster to get a particular item. Some monster types drop more or less gold and items than others though. Also, rarer types of monsters like elites and uniques have much better chances of dropping items and especially magic items.